to hate every single parent and child crowding up South Kensington during half term?!

[misspantomime]

I work in the area and every single evening during every single school holiday it takes me 30 minutes more to get home because a) I cannot walk down the streets as they are too crowded and (b) I cannot get into South Ken station due to crowding and also due to parents letting their kids walk down the road either on scooters or at 0.00000000005 MPH and also not knowing how to use the ticket barriers properly.

I am a Londoner and we are notoriously intolerant of people who can't use the underground properly but even so I never truly knew rage until I started working round here. There are queues all the way down the road. For the fricking science museum.

I don't go out of my to inconvience people, but if people choose to be rude just because they live in London then I'm not going to go out of my way to give in.
Central London is unnaturally full of people. Everyone, at some point, and probably without intending to, will be an inconvenience to someone else. This doesn't mean that anyone has more right to be there, it's public space. Public, thankfully includes people from every walk of life. The place that contains the most people from different walks of life is central London. Anyone who chooses to live and work in London but gets pissed off with people is making their life very very difficult. It's like having a moth phobia and working in a butterfly house!!

Walking past Harrods in the summer could make me apoplectic with rage.

I don't get upset when people do it where I live.

At no point did I say any of that!
If I go to London I have ample time, I walk miles, I go where the fancy takes me and I am in no hurry at all.
I don't stand in the way, but I may be slow working out unfamiliar systems or routes. I see no need to have worked it all out and be rushing around at great speed.
It also ridiculous to complain about there being a lot of children in school holiday times! Of course there are! Expect the same at Easter.

heartisaspadeI think growing up and living in London makes me very aware of not wanting to act like a Londoner, ever.

I think acting accordingly in New York or DC is similar to the UK. Same language, similar culture and customs. Easy.
I lived in Rio for three years, I know for a fact that you can plan all you like from the internet and guide books. Anyone who doesn't know the language and culture will make mistakes. I still would and I live in Brazil. The people described who take up the escalators or stand at the top of stairs in London, are from different counties, they don't speak English and come from cultures where behaviour we consider normal is considered rude and vice versa.

The people described who take up the escalators or stand at the top of stairs in London, are from different counties, they don't speak English and come from cultures where behaviour we consider normal is considered rude and vice versa.

Not really. A very significant number are British. Quite a lot from Surrey/Hampshire, based on where they alight....

YA so NBU, OP. And I don't even live in London.

I hate tourists. Despite the fact I am regularly one. Perhaps it's fairer to say I hate the phenomenon of tourists rather than the individuals (although the prize idiots who decide to stop at the bottom of the escalators to gawk at a map certainly would make my top 10).

Whenever I see the queues outside the NHM I just cross the road to the V&A, where there is never a queue. I adore the V&A, so it's not a heartbreak, but my first degree was geology and as an ex-curator I am a massive museum enthusiast, so I do like to get to see the NHM every now and then. I ventured there a couple of weeks ago with a group of university friends, and even in late January I had to queue for 40 minutes! For most of that I had a delightfully overexcited child (NOT mine) with incredibly ineffectual parents whacking the back of my legs every 5 minutes.

Many people go to Paris and say it would be perfect were it not for the French. I say it would be perfect without the swarms of tourists, who clog the pavements, stick padlocks on bridges and insist on looking at everything through their ipad despite the signs saying "No Photographs" in a veritable Babylon of languages.

I live currently in a delightful little rural idyll of central Britain. I am fortunate to live in one of the less touristy villages. My colleague, who has a beautiful house in one of the VERY touristy villages, hates the school holidays. He gets people peering in his windows, taking pictures. He has found tourists in his garden and every year, without fail, they actually try the door to come in. If it's a nice day, he has the back door open. Tourists wander into the garden and INTO his house; this has happened twice in the 18 months I've known him. They used to park all over his front garden until he installed some ornamental fuck-off-boulders. His car usually emerges after each season with several new dents or scratches.

There was a scary incident a few years ago where some daft airheaded bint clambered over a field gate with her two young boys, ignoring the big, red "BEWARE OF THE BULL" sign, because "they wanted to see if the bull had a ring through its nose". They were bloody lucky noone got hurt.

Tourists are fuckers!

My parents who live in London and really should know better took my DD and DS to the science museum on Tuesday, it was much more overcrowded than normal and they all couldn't wait to leave.

evans of course I have been to other cities as a newbie. Do I prepare myself in anticipation? Of course! Especially when I am responsible for getting a small person around with me!

There are Time Out guides that give you local information, there are infinite forums bursting with advice, there is google maps with actual pictures of streets!

So no, I tend not to wait until I am faced with a queue of angry busy people behind me to figure out where I am going. London is a working city, people need to get places quickly.

I also think growing up in London hardens you to it. I don't find other cities daunting at all. I have friends who have never been on a tube through fear so a trip to the museums is quite a challenge. I flew to New York/Paris/Monaco on my own as a teenager and it was fine.

Tywinlannister, I think you're right about that. Having to travel into Westminster for school everyday from 11-18, I too found flights by myself a peice of cake.

I am just aware that this is a London problem, other cities have other problems. Unless you live a considerable length of time in a place, you just don't learn them, and tourists are ignorant, no matter how much they think they know.

It takes a lot more than a lost or dithering tourist to piss me off. When I was a teenager a tourist getting in my way really bothered me. Now, I cannot believe I acted like that! Maybe it is just horses for courses.

So hope that the whiners won't be coming to the South West in the summer jamming up our roads. Jeez, get over yourselves.

OP, do you remember the ash cloud from the volcano a year or so ago? And how all the planes were grounded so no tourists came? London was bliss that week.

I can think of lots of places around the country that suffer far more from tourists than Kensington.
It wasn't bliss for those who earn a living from tourists, AnneofCheese.

Yes and the ones that were there couldn't go home!

It was bliss to have no planes overhead but I don't expect them to stop flying because it is personally a bit inconvenient!

It isn't as if OP would be any happier if they chose times other than school holidays- basically she doesn't want anyone to visit those popular museums if they interfere with her commuter times, have buggies, wheel chairs, school groups etc. they need to be in ones ot twos, be able bodied and purposeful,slip in and out between 10am and 4 pm and avoid her lunch time!
But of course OP should be free to clog up roads and tourist spots when it happens to suit her!

Hahaa I stayed late in the office this week to avoid tube. My nearest one is Leicester Square and I swear things were not this bad even during the Olympics in Stratford. URGH. Solidarity, sister

I haven't read the thread so this is probably pointless, but I just wanted to say what an arse the OP sounds. Plenty of people can only do day-trips during school holidays (like me -I am a teacher) and, if you are on a budget there is limited, if any, choice of times to travel.

I took my dc to London this week and we did our best not to inconvenience anyone. However, if we did, that is tough as we had just as much right to be there as anyone else.

YANBU. I recently saw a programme about how busy the Isle of Wight got on bank holidays and it was bonkers, much worse than now. BUT the difference was it was quiet the rest if the time so no one minded. All part of the holiday fun.

Getting into London before 9am is horrid. It's rammed, no seats anyway and half term makes it worse. London streets are packed most of the time, school holidays are worse. More places like the New Forest, A303 etc that are bad and just get worse. It isn't fair on people that live and work day in day out.

JassyRadlett I'm pretty sure people from Surrey and Hampshire don't have. Quote "loads of suitcases," I might be wrong...

I lived in London for over 20 yrs, I now live by the sea but work in a part of London that is so crammed full of tourists that they regularly close the tube station to prevent overcrowding on the platform. At weekends I can't park in the nearest city to my home because of all the tourists down from London and I think YABVU. Tourism is a major industry, one of my dc has a regular holiday job at a tourist venue. If the tourists didn't come to London with their cash many of our wonderful museums and galleries couldn't afford to be open and freely available to those of us who live and work there.

I was in S Kensington today - yes it was packed, and I wouldn't choose to go to the science museum or the NHM during half term - but I no longer have school age children, I can take a days leave and go when I like. When my dc were in school I was constrained by school holidays like everyone else.

Try driving down the A303 any time during daylight hours. It can take up to an hour to get past Stonehenge.

Anyway, on a previous thread we were told that London was the only place in the country worth living in as it had museums. You must let these poor uncultured children from the provinces visit your city and go to the museums as otherwise they will all get crack habits. Fact.